for i have loved the stars too fondly
by Sly as a Fawkes
Summary: for love is the snow that blankets the world, cleansing her with its cold embrace.  Dominique/Jon


**I recently finished the fifth book in the Song of Fire and Ice series. Let me tell you, that series is _addicting_. And the minute I finished the book, this idea came to me. I don't know if _anyone_ will read this and enjoy it, or even understand it, but I loved writing it and spent a long time on it.**

**.x.**

_for i have loved the stars too fondly to be fearful of the night_

**.x.**

Two days ago, Teddy told her that he was going to break up with Victoire because he didn't really love her. Two days ago, Teddy said that she was the most important girl in his life.

Two days ago, Teddy _lied_.

The sight of her _perfect _sister intertwined with the boy who both holds and breaks her heart on the same couch is just salt and lemon in a fresh wound. If there's one thing Dominique is good at doing, it's running.

So she runs, dashing over the threshold and flying across the sand. The rain instantly soaks through her thin shirt and plasters her fiery locks to her face. Within moments, she's wading into the tempestuous waters, the churning waves striking against her chest.

This is the moment in all of her (secret) favorite Muggle movies that the dashing young man comes to rescue his one true love. The sappy music will resonate all around them and he will sweep her off her feet and proceed to give her the most passionate kiss of all time.

No one comes to rescue her. With one final sob, Dominique dives into the water, her pale skin disappearing into the darkness.

The cold (_soso_ cold) cuts her like a knife, and within seconds, she can't tell which way is up. Maybe this wasn't such a good idea, because now her lungs are screaming for air and her hair is tangled around her throat. The current is angry and unrelenting, and slowly her eyes close without her giving them permission to do so. Her last thought is that it kinda sucks her last glimpse of life is just blackness...

**.x.**

...so it's a bit of a shocker when her eyelids flutter open and everything around her is so white she can feel her pupils begging for mercy. Unfortunately, it's just as cold as the ocean was. The goose-pimples erupt on her flesh and the clacking her teeth are making causes her head to hurt. She pushes herself into a sitting position, bemused to find herself surrounded by snow.

"Weird..." Dominique mutters, taking a glance around. She takes note of the forest she's in, with snow adorning the tops of trees in place of leaves. It's beautiful, in a harsh, unforgiving way, but Dominique thinks that she likes it.

The snow has managed to soak through her sleep pants. Dominique finds she doesn't have the strength to stand up, and instead decides to lay back into that soft (deadly) whiteness. Maybe a death by white will be better than a death by black.

Suddenly, white isn't the only color here with her. A huge shape, as white as the surrounding snow, suddenly moves against the backdrop of her vision, violent ruby eyes boring into hers.

She can almost _swear_ she hears a howl before she succumbs to unconsciousness once more.

**.x.**

Her second round of coming to is accompanied by warmth. Sweet, blessed warmth.

And itchy blankets. And the smell of a fire. And a peculiar taste in her mouth.

And the voice of a man she has _definitely_ never heard before.

Dominique vaults out of the unknown bed, floundering to stay on two feet. Her heartbeat thumps loudly in her ears, the fear of abduction or murder or some other horrible occurrence on the forefront of her mind.

And right behind that forefront is the thought that this place, whatever "this place" is, looks peculiarly like the inside of Hagrid's hut.

"Where the _hell _am I?"

The owner of the voice she heard earlier slowly turns to face her. He's _old_, older than her grandmother, bald and wrinkled. His entire body has seemed to shrink in on itself. When Dominique looks at his face, she is met with milky, clouded over eyes.

_He's blind_.

"You have awoken." His voice is fluttery, and paper thin. She's reminded of a bird with a hurt wing. "Who are you, my lady?"

Dominique cocks her head at the strangeness of the expression. _I must be dreaming..._ "Answer my question. Where am I?"

The old man doesn't flinch at the rudeness in her tone or her refusal to answer the question. "You are at Castle Black, my lady, under the protection of the Night's Watch."

He might have as well have been speaking Russian for all the good that particular bit of information does her. "Um..."

"I am Maester Aemon. Might I know who you are, my lady?"

His voice is layered with a faint accent that didn't sound familiar. His syntactical structure is odd, and Dominique isn't sure why he keeps calling her "my lady."

"I'm Dominique," she blurts out, too shocked at the situation she has found herself in to lie and create a fake alias. The taste in her mouth lingers, a kind of sweetness, and she realizes belatedly that her sleep clothes have been replaced by heavy furs. "Why am I wearing different clothes?"

The man who calls himself "Maester Aemon" (_what a weird name_ she thinks to herself) answers calmly. "We feared that your previous clothing would prove too frail for the cold here at the Wall."

"What?"

At that moment, a shuffling sound announced the presence of another man at the entrance to this strange room she is in. He looks at her the moment he walks through the entrance, and when his eyes meet hers, he visibly reddens and averts his gaze.

"M-m-my lady."

Dominique takes in the sight of this rotund human, with a mop of dark hair and matching eyes. She thinks that she has never two more opposite looking people in her life.

"May I present my steward, Samwell of House Tarly," the old man says with his frail voice. Samwell's skin reddens deeper, still refusing to meet her gaze. "Sam, the lady's name is-"

"Dominique Weasley," she interrupts rudely, but she doesn't care. "And I need to get the hell out of here."

Before either of the men can react, she's running once more, pushing past large Samwell and (taking care to not hit) frail Aemon. The minute she hits the outside world, her breath stops.

It's _cold_, the cold that cuts straight to your bones. Some other time Dom might've laughed; she once said that Hogwarts winters are the freezing version of Hell. How wrong she was.

The instant passes, and she is once more sprinting. It doesn't matter where she goes, as long as she _goes_. She feels like she's in a dream, but a fear has taken root that _she's not going to wake up._

Men dressed in all black like the two she left behind gape as she flies past. Several call out to her, but the words are indiscernible, and frankly, she doesn't give a fuck.

She stumbles onto a sort of clearing where younger men hold swords (_swords!_). The talking ceases as she screeches to a halt, gasping for (freezing) air, her hair a messy halo about her face and grey eyes bright. She scans the faces, looking for something, _anything_, familiar.

No such luck.

A wheezing reaches her ears and she whirls about to find the Samwell character lumbering after her. "Please, my lady, wait!"

"Stop calling me that!" Dominique screeches, all form of sanity leaving her. She's confused and cold, her head hurts, and she wants her papa to gather her up close to him, and she wishes Teddy would be there to whisper once more that he loved her most.

The fight and desire to flee drains out of her in an instant. She crumples, her knees folding, torso curling in on itself. Several of the men surrounding her are shouting to others. She stays curled up until the lightest pressure on her shoulder draws her gaze upwards.

He is wearing all black like the rest of the men in this strange place. His hair is just as black. He seems young, maybe fifteen or sixteen. His expression is somber, but his dark grey eyes betray a hint of warmth.

"You best return to your chambers, my lady," he mutters quietly. The other men are still shocked at her presence, although lewd expressions are beginning to appear on a few of the faces. "Sam will show you the way."

Dominique is too cold and tired to fight anymore, but she has decided that she refuses to act like a weakling. "I'm not anyone's _lady_," she sneers. That phrase has been rankling her since she woke up in this icy hell. "My name is Dominique."

The young man with the (pretty) eyes inclines his head. "Jon Snow."

As fat Sam leads her back to her room (prison? murder location?) she thinks that she's never seen Teddy wear a face that looks like that.

**.x.**

For the next week, Dominique refuses to leave the small area she's been allowed. It's much warmer inside anyway, and she doesn't feel like losing appendages to frostbite, thank you very much.

That doesn't mean that she's not curious. Dominique wants to know where exactly the hell she is, and she wants to know _now._

So to get the information she wants, Dominique pesters fat Sam every time he comes into her room to deliver her food with questions. He stammers and blushes and still refuses to look her in the eye, but his responses are informative and he is always kind. Maester Aemon eventually permits Sam some time each day to speak with her so her constant barrage of questions don't take him away from too much of his work.

And what _strange_ work it is. Tending to ravens (crows? she doesn't know) that carry messages to other castles. Castles not too unlike Hogwarts, although she suspects that they are smaller and don't have the same kind of warmth. She learns that there are Seven Kingdoms, combined into one giant land called Westeros, with other, Free Cities, to the east. Sam tells her about the lords and ladies that run these castles, about the knights that serve them and the realm, about the common people that farm and tend to animals. She's told of the sigils of the most famous families in the realms, and the history of the previous kings. Sam talks about the dragons that used to exist, along with giants, mammoths, and unicorns. She learns of the creepy beings called the Others, which sound suspiciously like Inferi, and of the wildlings to the north of the Wall, a giant wall of ice hundreds of feet tall that acts like a border between the Seven Kingdoms and the north.

Sometimes, she still thinks this is a dream.

**.x.**

"Why did you call me a lady the first day, Sam?" she asks one afternoon four days after having awoken here in this strange land. She's sprawled on her bed, facing the ceiling, memorizing the lines that run through the stone. "I'm not from any of those families."

Sam is standing awkwardly in the corner, his face the normal shade of tomato. "You-you look like a lady, my- Dominique," he catches himself in time. "Common folk don't look like you."

She's not sure why, but this saddens her. What if she wanted to just be a common person?

**.x.**

Pyp and Grenn and the others pester Sam at every meal, asking about the lady that is staying at Castle Black. Jon was the only one of their age group that was present on the practice field the day that she ran outside, and they all wanted to know more.

"I heard she's the most beautiful creature in all the realm."

"Is it true Sam?"

"What's her name again, Jon? You spoke with her."

He sighs. Five days and they haven't moved on to a new topic of discussion. "She said her name was Dominique."

"Well ain't that the queerest name you ever heard."

Grenn scratches his head. "Maybe she ain't from around here."

Jon shrugs and turns away, letting them debate the whearabouts of the strange girl that has taken up residence in Castle Black. He swore a vow to take no wife, father no children. His duty was to his Black Brothers, and to the realm.

So why couldn't he get the sight of her fiery hair and glittering eyes out of his head?

**.x.**

On that first day she had woken up and been returned to her quarters by Sam, Dominique had realized that her wand was missing. After a twenty minute panic attack and search through her clothes and new living quarters, as well as an intense interrogation of Sam, she had been forced to come to the conclusion that her wand did not make the trip with her to this strange land. For some reason, Dominique thinks that this is because she didn't have it on her person when she jumped into the ocean.

A week after having woken up here though, she's discovered that she doesn't miss it all that much. Having heard how these people survive, without the assistance of heating charms and house elves, without the ability to conjure a fire out of thin air or stun an opponent, is kind of a magic all on its own.

**.x.**

By this point, she has decided that she no longer wants to spend her time cooped up in this small living space. Sam's stories of these lands have fanned the flames of her curiosity, and she wants to explore.

So when Sam comes by with something to "break her fast" (she still giggles internally over that phrase), instead of sitting with him and pestering him with questions, she bullies him into letting her explore Castle Black.

"The com-comm-commander wanted you to stay in the room un-until he decided where you sh-sh-should be sent," Sam stutters as she marches confidentially outside.

The Lord Commander Mormount _had_ in fact said that, but since when did Dominique decide to follow orders? "Oh we'll be fine. Trust me."

The snow makes a satisfying crunching noise under her heavy boots, and the bitter cold feels as sweet as a lover's kiss upon her face after the oppressive stuffiness of the room she had been confined to for the past week.

Most of the men of the fort are eating, so she encounters no one on her walk. She passes an armory and the rookery where the noisy ravens are kept. When Dominique reaches the Wall, her legs freeze into place.

She had tried to imagine several hundred vertical feet of ice during her confinement, but all the imagination in the world couldn't live up to reality. It was massive, a formidable creation that sparkled in the sun. The heat (if you could actually call it heat) of the day was causing parts of the wall to weep.

"Can we go on the top?" she breathes, awed. Sam shuffles awkwardly, glancing about nervously. He doesn't want the Lord Commander to discover that he went against an order.

"We take patrols on top of the Wall, to scout the north," he says in form of an answer once he's discerned that no one is around to see this flaunting of the rules.

There is no warning, no footsteps or breathing, to announce the arrival of the wolf. The great white creature appears as suddenly as if it had been created out of the freshly fallen snow. Dominique's heart leaps to her throat for one moment, before she spots the ruby eyes.

"I know you," she murmurs. The wolf does nothing but continue to gaze at her. Sam recovers from his initial shock at the sudden appearance to inform her as to why a giant wolf was at Castle Black.

"His name is Ghost. He's Jon Snow's direwolf."

"I've seen him before." She crouches down until her eyes are on level with the shining red ones. Ghost continues to stare for one heartbeat, before slowly walking forward. Sam stares, shocked, as Ghost presses his nose gently to Dominique's outstretched hand.

"He's the one that found you."

The voice startles Sam, but Dominique and Ghost calmly look up. Jon Snow himself strolls into view, his black cloak in stark contrast to the surrounding white. There's bits of snow in his hair.

"He found you asleep in the snow," Jon repeats, an odd look on his face as he takes in the sight of Ghost standing next to Dominique. "When I heard him howl I went to him. It's unusual that he does something like that."

She doesn't like the talk of saving her; she's done playing the weak little girl. "Well then. I suppose it's you I have to thank for saving my life," she directs to the white beast. The red eyes flash and meet hers for a moment, before Ghost slips away, his coat serving as the best camouflage possible.

Dominique can feel Jon and Sam's gaze on her. Voices of other men as they leave their dining area begin to grow louder, and she decides that she doesn't want any more confrontations today. As silent as the wolf, she returns to her room.

**.x.**

_His fingers trace incomprehensible patterns across her skin. She sighs contentedly._

_"You know, we can't keep doing this if you're still with Victoire."_

_Teddy shifts slightly. She can't see his face, but his fingers halt in their movement. "Dom, you know I love you most."_

_She nods into his chest. The sunlight that streams through her window illuminates the space that the two of them are entertwined together on her bed. "Yes, but-"_

_"But nothing. I'll tell her in two days, when she gets back from France." He presses a kiss to the crown of her head._

_But something's wrong. The sunlight is growing warmer, becoming uncomfortable. Suddenly, her skin is melting, sloughing off into puddles that pool around her skeleton. She screams for Teddy to help her, but he is the heat, burning her, destroying everything..._

Dominique wakes up in a pool of sweat, her skin flushed, her breathing heavy and erratic. She must've thrashed in her sleep, for her blankets have entangled her in their suffocating embrace.

She flings them off and immediately goes outside, wearing the nightgown that the Night's Watch managed to dig up. It's pitch black outside, with distant stars dotting the inky sky. She's aware of the cold instantaneously, but it no longer feels like vicious bites in her skin. Instead, it kisses her skin, soothing away the horrible heat from her nightmare.

It's at this moment that she realizes she can't remember what hair color Teddy liked to wear most often.

**.x.**

When Sam comes in at daybreak with a plate of eggs and fried bread, he finds Dominique completely dressed in her thick furs and her hair tied back in a long plait. She has a determined expression and for once he doesn't look away in shyness, but stares with shock. There's something different about her today.

"I want to learn to shoot an arrow," she states, taking the plate from Sam and digging into the bread. "I'm tired of doing nothing here."

Sam manages to clear his throat, but doesn't get a word out before she's continued on. "You can shoot, right? I mean you have to be able to. Your a man of the Night's Watch." She soaks up some of the egg with her last piece of bread. "I don't really think using a sword is going to work for me. Swinging a heavy piece of metal doesn't strike me as something I could do." Dominique realizes she's babbling, realizes that Sam is still standing in the exact same position as he walked in with his flabbergasted look, but she doesn't stop. Something changed inside of her, or maybe something woke up that she never knew had existed, but she isn't about to stop it. "But shooting an arrow? Seems like something I could do. I mean, I think Muggles still do that kind of thing, but just for fun."

She dumps the plate back into Sam's hands as she makes her way out the door. "And thank you for the food."

Dominique is vaguely aware of Sam following her, but she's moving swiftly to the fighting arena, refusing to allow him to catch up. The clangs of steel on steel draw her closer.

All action stops when she appears. The men gape, but she ignores them and glides to the shooting range. Ser Thorne takes in her flushed cheeks as a grin that drips of debauchery slides onto his face.

"And what do you think you're doing here, my lady," he drawls. Dominique is aware of the young trainees of the Watch still staring openly. She can see Jon Snow in her peripheral vision, his shoulders tense. Thorne cocks his head to the side.

"I don't believe I asked for your presence here on _my_ training field," he continues, his voice taunting and cruel. "My bed, perhaps..."

And Thorne's left eyebrow bursts into flame.

His wordless shrieks echo throughout the otherwise quiet arena. Sam's jaw, Dominique believes, has permanently become unhinged, and the rest of the boys seem to be in no better shape. After a moment, Jon comes to his senses, scoops a handful of snow from the ground, and thrusts it into Thorne's face. A hissing sound is accompanied by a small tendril of smoke rising from the master-at-arms' face.

Dominique doesn't stick around to see the rest. Perhaps she can learn to shoot a bow some other day.

She doesn't let Sam catch up this time. Instead, she sprints, not back to her room, but into the line of trees. Once she thinks she's far enough away, she slows, allowing her breathing to return to normal. The mist from her exhalations warm the air in front of her.

Magic. She had done magic. She had felt this click, this shift of something inside her when Ser Thorne's eyebrow had caught fire. The magic had surged through her, helped along by her flare of anger at Thorne's innuendos. She had envisioned punching him in the face and the satisfaction she would receive; setting fire to his facial hair seemed like the next best thing.

Ghost finds her once more an hour later. She has spent this time trying to make small objects in the forest levitate. Attempting to let that magic flow through her once more was difficult without authentic emotion to support it. She ends up chucking a branch against the trunk of the tree in frustration, relishing in the satisfaction of the cracking noise as it breaks in two before realizing that a pair of eyes is watching her every move.

"Hello there."

The wolf does not respond. Dominique doesn't let this deter her.

"I think I've nearly got the hang of it," she mutters, addressing herself as much as the wolf. "I've just got to not _think_ about it as much as _feel_ it. Does that make sense?"

This time, the wolf blinks.

"You know, I wonder if this strategy would work back home, with my wand. I've never had the easiest time with spells and making them work the way I want them too. That was always Rose. And Victoire." Her voice dies, the memories flooding her mind once more. Bitterness and despair, she discovers, are not the accompanying feelings. Instead, she gets a sense of loneliness.

"I miss them," Dominique whispers when she finds her voice. Ghost cocks his head, appearing to listen inently. "Maman, and Papa. Victoire and Lou. Molly, Lucy, Roxy, and Rose and Lily. Aunt Ginny and Uncle Charlie." She stops once more, but this time it is not because of a ruse of emotion. There is someone else close by.

"I know you're there!" Dominique calls defiantly. The sound of crunching snow reaches her before the sight of Jon does.

"We were sent to look for you," he says without preamble. "Ser Alliser is furious, but the Lord Commander calmed him down. Apparently, he didn't believe Ser Thorne's story about you causing his eyebrow to catch fire."

If Jon was looking for a reaction, Dominique disappoints him. "Well that is simply mad. How could I set someone's eyebrow on fire?"

Jon's eyes narrow; he knows something, but Dominique isn't about to confess her dirty little secret. She strolls up to him as though she owns this forest, and presses her lips to his cheek for the briefest of kisses.

"Thank you for finding me." Her voice is a whisper, and she thinks she can hear his pulse race and see the darkening of his skin. Without a word, he begins to lead her back to Castle Black.

Dominique has just enough time to grin as she witnesses the branches of the nearest tree take on a golden hue.

**.x.**

Sam still comes every morning with breakfast and thirty minutes to spare for her questions. She doesn't have so many, anymore. At least not questions that Sam can answer. How could he tell her what to do about the fluttery feeling she gets when she thinks of a certain man of the Night Watch with grey eyes?

So she once more spends her days in her room, but no longer as a captive with nothing to do. Dominique can make the few books throughout the room fly from their perches to her outstretched hands. She can make her dark brown cloak turn a vivid pink and violent orange. Sometimes, when she thinks about home, the fire in the pit shivers and hisses.

Once, Maester Aemon walked in on her to inquire upon her health. She had been attempting to brighten and dim the fire, the way she'd seen McGonagall do with the candles in the Great Hall with just a wave of her hand. The old man stops in the doorway as Dominique hurriedly returns the fire to it's dimmer state.

_He can't see, he can't see, he can't see..._

She chants this to herself, something to still her beating heart. She's heard Sam talk before about those they call sorceresses, those associated with some Red God. Those type of people aren't looked upon fondly here in the north, where they worship both the Seven and something in a tree.

"Maester Aemon," she murmurs in way of greeting. He smiles, his pale eyes focused intently on her.

Sometimes she thinks that there is no way he's blind.

"My lady. The Lord Commander wishes me to tell you that he has yet to find the solution to your predicament. But rest assured, you will not have to stay for much longer at Castle Black."

She thinks she's off the hook until Aemon cocks his head slightly and asks, "And now, I wonder if you might inform me as to how you managed to cool the fire when I walked in."

Dominique swallows convulsively. "I-I-"

"I won't tell anyone else. But Sam tells you so much of our life here, and I wish to know of yours."

So he sits next to her on her bed and listens as she talks for hours of Hogwarts and Shell Cottage, of her numerous aunts and uncles and her siblings and cousins. She talks of unicorns and dragons and magic spells, giant spiders and friendly ghosts, and tells the tale of the dark man who was vanquished by her own uncle many years ago.

She's not sure if he actually believes anything she says. After all, Dominique muses, it does seem rather far fetched and impossible to believe, especially living in a world like this. But when she has exhausted her stores of memories and her throat is horse from the hours of talking, Maester Aemon simply thanks her, pats her knee once, and shuffles from the room.

**.x.**

Dominique finds she can't quite remember how Rose used to laugh. When Rosie _really_ cracked up, she had this snorting laugh that would cause everyone around to dissolve into giggles and forget what they were laughing about in the first place.

And Rose would stomp and tell everyone that _it wasn't funny and they were all horrible_.

Dominique wishes she could remember what the laugh sounded like. She wishes she could ruffle Louis's hair and grin as he swatted at her hand. She wishes she could watch James and Fred wind up Molly until she threatened to hex them into tomorrow.

But the feel of Teddy's arms around her? His voice low and whispering in her ear? No, she can't conjure that memory anymore either.

Even if she tries to remember that, she isn't filled with sadness like when she reflects on the others. All she sees is Jon's kind eyes, and the way he blushed when she pressed her lips to his skin ever so lightly.

**.x.**

Four or so weeks into her stay at Castle Black, she decides to revisit her attempt at archery. She has no desire to confront Ser Alliser Throne again, so Dominique makes plans to sneak out at night and try shooting the arrows at the targets.

She gets about fifteen feet from her room when she's caught.

"I don't believe the Lord Commander would approve of you sneaking out of your room," Jon tells her in a disapproving tone. "Perhaps you should return to your quarters."

"Perhaps you should shut up and leave me alone," she snaps, although she doesn't mean it, not really. Dominique is annoyed at being caught, and fed up with the men here treating her like such a _girl_. "I just want to try and shoot an arrow."

Jon sighs deeply before leading her without another word to the arena. She follows along like an eager school girl, tripping a few times over absolutely nothing in her way.

"You are going to freeze without gloves," Jon remarks at her bare hands. Dominique's skin glows in the moonlight, and her fingers curl at his comment.

"I like the cold," she mentions off-hand as she peruses the selection of bows. "Which one will work for me?"

And so Dominique spends the next two hours with Jon as her teacher, learning how to pull the arrow correctly and let it fly. He places his arm around her, showing her how to hold the bow _just so_.

She learns about how he misses his siblings. Robb, Arya, Bran, Rickon. Even Sansa, although Dominique privately thinks that the young girl reminds her of Victoire.

When she hits the target on her own for the first time, she's so happy that the snow dances around her feet and colored lights twirl about her fiery hair.

When she leans in to capture Jon's lips with hers, he doesn't pull away.

**.x.**

They settle on a routine of practicing archery every other night, because Jon insists that they both need to sleep sometime. Dominique acquiesces, but only because she can't imagine arguing with him when he runs his fingers through her hair.

Some nights, Sam accompanies him. Some nights, it's just the three of them focusing on nothing but that target and the weapon they hold in their hands. Some nights, it's long conversations where Dominique opens herself up in ways she never thought possible.

One night, she bends down and grasps a fistful of snow in her right hand. It sparkles from the light of the full moon before she tosses it into Jon's face. He blinks, stunned, as the white crystals tangle in his hair.

Sam ruins the picturesque moment by snorting. Jon responds with an evil grin and a handful on powder thrown into Sam's face.

Dominique laughs so hard that she doesn't make any noise, just gasps for air. She falls to her knees, clutching her stomach at the mirth. Jon and Sam pounce on her moment of weaknesses, mashing snow onto the crown of her forehead. Small rivulets of icy water run down cheeks.

The water hides the salty tears that only she's aware exist.

**.x.**

Dominique can create water out of thin air now, as well as set something on fire (on purpose). She can make the rats that call Castle Black their home slow in their movements, or halt altogether. She can transform the blanket on her bed to a kitten and back.

Dominique can keep from wincing at the weight of the bow after she's held it for an hour now. She can look upon the calluses that have formed on her palms with pride. She can pull the bowstring taught, take quick aim, and hit the middle of the target every time.

Dominique can lure Jon back to her room every night, and pepper his body with kisses. She can sink into his embrace and relish in the feel of his skin on hers. She can gasp when his fingers trace patterns across her thighs.

It feels like snow. Wondrous, freshly fallen snowflakes, dancing on her skin.

**.x.**

"I-I can't. I took a vow-"

"Please, Jon. _Please_. I need this."

"I-I need this too. But...but..."

She silences him with a kiss. Jon doesn't protest again.

**.x.**

When Dominique remembers how she loved Teddy, she thinks that she truly never knew what love was.

For love is Ghost's raspy tongue licking her cheek. Love is Sam bumbling into her room, a plate of food in his hands. Love is Jon, with his beautiful eyes and gentle caresses.

Love is the snow that blankets the world, cleansing her with it's cold embrace.

**.x.**

The Lord Commander is announced outside her door one morning. She returns the iguana that was crawling around on the floor to its original state (her boot) before letting him know that she is presentable.

He enters, and without so much as a how-do-you-do, he's informed her that she is to journey to Acorn Hall, where she will be a chambermaid to the lady of the castle. He inclines his head ever so slightly to signal his departure, and sweeps from the room in a swirl of black fabric.

She's paralyzed, and the only sound is the frantic beating of her heart. Leave Castle Black? Leave Maester Aemon and Sam and Ghost?

Leave Jon?

Dominique knows better than to search for Jon during the day, and so she waits until the sun has been chased from the sky and the moon has made her appearance. The wind is beginning to gain strength and bits of snow cling to her eyelashes.

Jon meets her near the archers field, his expression impossible to read. He opens his arms when she nears him, and she enters them at once.

"The Lord Commander is taking a group of men north of the wall." Jon's voice is thick with _something_. Dominique isn't sure she wants to know what it is. "I am leaving at dawn."

She buries her head into the crook of his neck. Never has anywhere felt so safe. "I'm leaving too. To Acorn Hall. I have to be a chambermaid."

Jon's arms tighten around her. "Dominique, I lo-"

"Please don't," she whispers, squeezing her eyes shut. She can't take that. _Anything_ but that.

Another boy had told her the same thing. What had it accounted for but a broken heart and empty promises?

Jon seems to understand. He holds her tighter. "I'll never forget. Please don't forget me."

She can't help the few tears that escape, despite her clenched eyelids. She's positive Jon can feel them on his skin, but he makes no comment on it. Instead, she takes a deep, shuddering breath.

"Never."

**.x.**

The men that are sent South to King's Landing to beg for new recruits are instructed to stop by Acorn Hall first and drop off the young woman traveling with them. Six miles away from Castle Black, they realize that she is no where to be found. Her belongings that were packed are still neatly seated where they were when they began the journey.

The girl with the fiery hair and stunning features is gone.

**.x.**

She finds her way back into the forest next to Castle Black. The storm that had begun last night didn't let up as the sun rose. Snow falls thick and fast onto the ground, but Dominique likes it just the way it is.

She lies down in the snow, and watches with abstract curiosity as flakes quickly begin to cover her legs. She had discarded her thick cloak somewhere back to where she had escaped the wagon, and the cold quickly begins to dull her senses.

Just before she closes her eyes, she imagines Sam's kind smile, Jon's beautiful eyes.

Just before she loses consciousness, she thinks she hears a wolf howl.

**.x.**

Her eyelids flutter open, and for a split second, she thinks she's still in the forest. The sky is white, the surrounding area is white, there is white covering her legs.

Then reality sets in and Dominique discovers that it's not the sky, it's the ceiling, and around her are walls. And it's a blanket over her legs, not snow.

A sharp cry sounds from somewhere to the right of her.

"Dominique! Ma fille!"

Fleur's hysterical voice is accompanied by deeper exclamations from Bill, as well as sobs from Victoire. Dominique feels like it takes all the effort in the world to simply raise her head to look at them.

"Where-what-?"

A hospital. That's where she must be. That can be the only reason for the smell of extreme cleanliness, the blank walls, the starch sheets. But...why?

An hour later, and she's gotten the whole story. She almost drowned. If it wasn't for Louis, she probably would have. She'd been sleeping for two days, her body exhausted from the toll the unforgiving sea had forced upon it.

Her large family streams through the door of the hospital, bringing cards and flowers and sweets, all of them ecstatic that she's going to be ok. Some try to ask about _why_ she went swimming, but Bill silences them with a look and a shake of the head. Apparently he thinks his daughter is in too weak and fragile of a state to discuss what emotional instability led to her almost untimely death.

The funny thing is, when Dominique thinks about why she jumped into the waves, she realizes she doesn't even know her reasoning behind it.

**.x.**

Teddy visits a couple of hours after she had woken up. Her dad had taken Fleur and her siblings home, telling her that he would be back soon.

Teddy walks in, his hair a dull brown, eyes a matching shade. His expression is so somber, Dominique thinks that for a moment someone's died.

Oh wait. She almost had.

"Dom-"

She cuts him off by lifting a hand. "Teddy, please don't apologize."

His shoulders slump. "I really was going to end things with Victoire."

Dominique looks him straight in the eye. "No, you weren't. But the thing is, that's ok."

When Bill returns, he finds his daughter has shoved the blankets off the bed and opened the window as far as it can go, claiming that it's much too hot in the room.

**.x.**

When she's finally let out of the hospital, she doesn't speak to anyone for days. Her parents tiptoe around the matter of what the think was an attempted suicide (which, when she thinks about it, she supposes it was). They want to know the reasons behind it, but aren't sure if their questioning will send her into a spiral of depression.

Instead, she lets them be silent, choosing instead to sit with Louis for vast periods of time where they almost never talk.

A week before her seventh year at Hogwarts is to begin, she apparates to the nearest Muggle village and buys a bow and arrow. Bill and Fleur can only watch in complete astonishment as Dominique manages to hit her makeshift target in the exact middle every single time.

**.x.**

The first day of Transfiguration, Dominique turns her desk into a perfect, scaled down version of Hogwarts. The number of windows is exact, and small figurines of Hogwarts students are visible inside. Her wand is left untouched in her bag.

The students around her gawk, and the professor doesn't do much better. When he asks, awed, where she learned magic like that, Dominique doesn't answer.

**.x.**

Sometime near the end of November, Eloise Finnigan wakes up, glances outside, and groans in frustration. The other girls in the Gryffindor seventh year dorm awake.

"What's the matter?"

Eloise sighs dramatically. "It's starting to snow. I hate when it gets so cold. Especially when-"

The conversation comes to a screeching halt as Dominique sprints to the window. The other girls have barely heard her speak at all this year, much less see her move with such excitement. They can only watch, astounded, when Dominique turns to face them, a sad little smile on her face.

"Winter is coming."

She's rushing out of the dormitory before any of them can formulate an articulate answer.

"You're going to freeze wearing just that nightgown!" Eloise finally manages to splutter after her. The words are wasted on the girl, already dancing in the falling snow.

**.x.**

As soon as Hogwarts ends, she leaves the country, moving into the deepest forests of Canada. She buys a ramshackle cabin with a fireplace, and a hundred acres.

The first time she sees the wolf pack with its all white leader move silently through the trees surrounding her house, she isn't sure whether to smile or to cry.

So she does both.

**.x.**

Dominique declines the wedding invite Victoire and Teddy send, fabricating some excuse about a job she doesn't really have. Several years later, Louis writes to tell her that he is expecting a son with his wife.

She suggests the name Jon. A month later, the next letter she receives informs her that she need to get her arse back to Britain to meet her nephew and godson, Jon Weasley.

**.x.**

She dies with the wind on her cheeks, the snow scattered through her grey hair, and the night alive with the song of the wolves.


End file.
